Whitney

Whitney is a bodyworker (CMT) and multimedia artist based in West Oakland. They are dedicated to serving their community through bodywork and massage education, especially LGBTQIA+ people of color. Drawing from their own journey through disordered eating, body disconnection, and CPTSD, they bring deep personal understanding to their work as a trauma-informed massage therapist. Rooted in liberation and healing justice, Whitney's mission is to help people reconnect with their bodies as a source of strength and agency, and to make transformative bodywork accessible to those who have historically been excluded from it.

In their free time, they enjoy spending time with animals, being in or by the ocean, drawing, reading, singing, and cooking.

Vicki

Vicki is an artist, organizer, and tech worker based in Downtown Oakland. Rooted in Buddhist practice, their work explores nondualism and seeds of interbeing futures through co-creating the MELT Bodywork Skillshare, supporting Home Bass (https://homebass.pages.dev/) dance studio, moving with Be Movement Collective (https://www.instagram.com/bemovementcollective/), working in climate tech, and organizing with their sangha and No Tech for Apartheid (https://www.notechforapartheid.com/). They dream of a world where each being is free to offer the gifts that connect them to aliveness, and receive what they need.

What is MELT?

MELT was conceived in Oakland, CA by Whitney(link bio here) and Vicki (link bio here), two friends with a shared passion of bodywork and community organizing. It stands for Massage Exchange & Learning Together, and was borne from our collective dream of free healing education for our community and all communities. MELT is rooted in healing justice, liberation, and love! We welcome everyone at our events, regardless of massage experience. Our workshops are designed to be accessible for people of all skill-levels.

We currently meet (mostly) once a month. Typically, our workshops are structured identically, and we switch up the skillshare content each time. There is a skillshare portion which takes around 2 hours, and a potluck + jam portion which we allocate 1 hour for. MELT is COVID cautious and requires each participant to test day-of, and we provide free COVID tests at the door. We ask attendees to come with a partner to work with, or they can pair up with a new friend at the workshop.

We start with introductions, a short meditation to ground in together, and then we split into "pods" of four to form a mini-community within the group. The pods allow participants to get to know each other a bit more deeply and can lean on each other for extra support through the workshop.

Then we practice consent, learn some basics about pressure and technique, and a bit of anatomy about the body part(s) we are working on. We then move into the skillshare portion, where Whitney usually shares 3 techniques. We invite the pairs to practice each technique for about 30 minutes, with each person giving massage for 15 minutes, and receiving massage for 15 minutes. Whitney will come around during the practice portion to answer any questions or give advice.

At the end, we get back into the pods and offer a reflection question, then invite sharebacks to the larger group to conclude the skillshare before breaking into the potluck and jam portion of the event. This is a time for attendees to connect with other community members, continue practicing the skills they just learned, dream together, snack on yummy food, and just hang out.

If you want to see a real life example of how a recent MELT went, click here: An Evening with MELT

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Our philosophy

Massage and other healing arts are inaccessible in many ways -- bodywork is expensive, and learning how to do bodywork requires one to attend some kind of institution, which is also expensive. Touch is culturally taboo to many of us, and healing platonic touch is simply not part of our lives. However, massage has been around since humans have been around (and even before, with apes!), and we have been practicing it for thousands of years. We believe that massage is something everyone can learn, and that everyone should have access to.

In our modern day and age, we are all touched somehow by the insidious effects of patriarchal racial capitalism (PRC). In a society ruled by a false notion of scarcity, we live in fear of not having enough. We feel that we do not have the means to care for ourselves, much less care for others. We work demanding jobs in order to survive, contorting our bodies into hunched positions for the majority of our weeks, or physically laboring until we are exhausted. Our bodies were not meant to operate this way -- they begin to hurt, develop inflammation, perhaps even permanent injuries from the various unnatural tasks we must complete. Chronic pain becomes the norm for many of us.

Have you ever wondered why so many people around you are grumpy or mean? It is likely that they are experiencing physical pain. 1 in 5 people globally deal with chronic pain (source). When we are in pain, we can't think of much else. We project this pain onto the people around us. The pain screams to be addressed, but there is no accessible solution. Many turn to opioids or other addictive substances to curb the pain. Western medicine prescribes pharmaceuticals, but this is not sustainable or truly healthy.

We also face immense mental stress from our constant struggle to survive. Left unaddressed, these psychological tolls can have long-lasting physical effects on our bodies, potentially leading to chronic inflammatory conditions such as arthritis, IBS, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, migraines, and even cardiovascular disease.

Receiving massage regularly offers a powerful preventative measure against these conditions. By activating the parasympathetic nervous system, massage brings the body out of its chronic "fight or flight" state, lowering cortisol levels and reducing the inflammatory markers that drive so many of these conditions. Research has shown that even a single session can meaningfully reduce cortisol and increase serotonin and dopamine, which are the body's natural mood and pain regulators (Field, T., Hernandez-Reif, M., Diego, M., Schanberg, S., & Kuhn, C. (2005). "Cortisol decreases and serotonin and dopamine increase following massage therapy." International Journal of Neuroscience, 115(10), 1397–1413. DOI: 10.1080/00207450590956459 Also available on PubMed. )

Thus, MELT seeks to provide our communities with the knowledge and confidence to massage one another. In doing so, we can collectively retrain our nervous systems to better manage stress responses, keep inflammation in check, and of course, reduce physical pain and tension in our bodies. When we feel better, our capacity for compassion increases. We are inspired to share more with those around us. We dream of creating a worldwide ripple effect with MELT -- spreading massage far and wide!

Different ways to MELT

Massage Skillshare: We envision a massage skillshare as a casual gathering of bodywork / massage therapy skillsharing, care exchange, and connection. We invite attendees to learn basic techniques and build up knowledge in how to approach massage. No prior experience is needed – this is aimed at all skill levels! RSVP required; next skillshare RSVP is always at bit.ly/bodyworkjam.
Massage Open Session and Potluck: Open Sessions open a space to socialize, build community, and practice offering and receiving care with those around us. They are cozy, social, and strictly platonic. We invite folks to experience and envision other ways to spend casual time with each other – massages do not have to be a big deal, or only for professionals, or only for romantic partners – and we hope that you bring this experience back to your communities. Bodywork exchange can be for everyone! RSVP encouraged for headcount purposes; next open session RSVP is always at bit.ly/meltopensession.

MELT Mutual Aid Fund

We ground in mutual aid and community care. All of our events are completely free to attend!

If you would like to honor the work of MELT, we encourage and invite donations. 80% of donations go to the MELT Mutual Aid fund, and 20% of donations go to operating costs such as donations to the venue.

100% of the MELT Mutual Aid Fund is redistributed to support community members to receive professional healing work.

Learn more about the fund: bit.ly/meltmaf

Apply to receive funds: bit.ly/meltmafapply

Contact Us

If you would like to collaborate or help, we would like to chat!

Here are some examples of reasons to hit us up…

  1. You run a similar event or do related work and want to exchange wisdom
  2. You are a bodyworker and are interested in leading a skillshare or helping at a jam
  3. You have community in a different city and are interested in running a similar MELT there
  4. You massaged your friend after attending MELT and are happy about it (we're happy about it too <3)
  5. You have a connection to an event space that we could use for free or low cost
  6. You know how to get to sustain community projects like MELT (grants??? donors?? help!)
  7. You have advice on how to make our event accessible for elders
  8. You know communities that could benefit from attending MELT
  9. …etc!

Thank you for reading <3

May you be well.

With care and community,
Whitney + Vicki